


Phoenix

by DHW



Series: Sanctuary [6]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 21:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17649875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DHW/pseuds/DHW
Summary: Virgil lied. Love does not always conquer all.





	Phoenix

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to ThisIsZircon and Quaggy for their help and advice.

The day she knew she had fallen in love with him, it had been raining. Not in the garden, but outside, in the world beyond the cottage walls. Inside, it had felt like summer. Hot. Humid. 

The scent of catmint and lilac had filled the air. Foxgloves sprung from beneath hedgerows and trees, a riot of pinks and purples amongst the green. Lily pads dotted the surface of the pond, expanding ever outwards. Birds sung. Fish swam. And the curious little bees, the ones striped red and black, had bumbled around the garden, humming as they went. 

It had been mid-afternoon. Or perhaps closer to tea-time. She couldn’t remember, and maybe it wasn’t really all that important. But what she could remember was that her feet had been bare (the gravel of the path had felt hot and sharp against her soles) and that she had been carrying a pitcher of water, two glasses cradled in the crook of her arm. 

The path back from the kitchen had taken her in a circuitous route. Down through the wisteria-covered arches. Around the oak and the ash and the willow, the bees that lived in the hollows of the trees coasting on the eddies that blew through cracks in the wall. Past the brambles, and the herb beds onto which they had begun to encroach, to where the garden opened out proper. In the grass, near the pond with its floating islands of green, had stood Giles. 

Buffy had stopped. Swept her hair from her eyes. Giles had not yet seen her, fully absorbed in his work; he was building a bonfire, stacking the wood carefully and methodically, weaving in the occasional vine and creeper from the more pernicious weeds removed from the rosebeds by the western wall.

Buffy had watched him from her place upon the path, his movements measured and fluid, his hands stained green and brown in turns, his cheeks flushed with exertion. 

Slowly, careful not to disturb him, she stepped from the gravel of the path and onto the grass. As she came closer, she realised he was humming. It was not a tune she recognised. It sounded almost childish. Like a song sung by a mother to her restless child. Simple, but no less beautiful for its lack of complexity. 

Giles’ hands had moved in time to the rhythm, as though the song shaped his work. The bees, too, she noticed, seem to move in time with the tempo he had set; they looped and twirled, weaving in and out of the sticks and branches he stacked, rising up and spiraling down in step with the melody. 

A single bee alighted upon the back of his hand. Red and black, roughly the size of a two-pence coin. Without missing a beat, Buffy had watched as he had blown the bee back into the air, a smile upon his face. A smile that had made her stomach flip and her chest warm. 

It was then that she knew she could no longer fight the inevitable. She had fallen in love with him. And when she had stood upon the grass, pitcher of water in her hand, the rays of the faux sun shining down hotly upon her, she thought that maybe it had happened a while before. Perhaps in the previous winter, when the snow had been thick underfoot both inside the garden and out. Or in the autumn, when they had walked the tracks of the Bakerloo line in pursuit of the wyvern that lived in the tunnels beneath the Thames. Or maybe earlier still, when the skies were cloudless and the grass like kindling. 

But when she had admitted it to herself, it had felt like summer, and it had been raining outside. That was how it had begun, with sunshine and distant rain. With the buzzing of bees and the sound of humming.

And now it had ended. Not with a bang (no pun intended), but with the soft click of a closing door, and the whisper of fabric as she sat down upon the floor in silence. 

Her first thought was how dusty the window blinds were. They held a grey tinge to them, the off-white made only more so by what looked like days, if not weeks, of neglect. 

It was an odd thing to notice. 

Blinking, Buffy turned away from the window, and took in the rest of Giles’ office. The carpet was a little worn in places, the tell-tale indents of recently moved furniture beneath the window and alongside the far wall. A confined sort of chaos reigned upon his bookshelves and desk, paper spilling from his in-tray to his out. An axe lay in the space beneath the sideboard. Stake in the pen pot. And upon the window ledge, perched precariously between stacks of dog-eared academic journals, sat a small purple thyme plant, its leaves just beginning their outward creep from the pot. 

There had been plants in his office back in Sunnydale, she remembered. Plants in his apartment, too. And the Magic Box; beautiful green ferns that spread across the top of the shelving. 

Some things did not change. 

And it was that thought that finally unleashed the flood. Hot tears welled in her eyes, running one after another down her cheeks. Buffy swiped angrily at her face with the back of her hand, glaring at the door as she did so. 

“Would a ‘thanks but no thanks,’ really have been too hard?” she said with a sniff. 

Her confession couldn’t really have been so unexpected as to make him bolt, could it? She thought not. After all, it wasn’t like the signs hadn’t been there. Giles was an observant man - he must have seen the way she looked at him, felt the way she shivered beneath his touch. And was it really so extraordinary that she would fall for him? He was kind and caring, offering support without judgement, and attractive in his own quiet way. Physically, their compatibility was astounding. Emotionally, their footing was less than equal, but only, Buffy thought, because Giles would not let her in. 

If only he had opened up a little, perhaps this mess could have been avoided. Told her that whilst he was flattered, for him, their arrangement was nothing more than an attempt to satisfy their more carnal needs in a mutually beneficial way. That she’d misread the signs, his attentions the result of kindness and nothing more. 

Anything would have been preferable to this, she thought.

And how dare he‽ How dare he leave her like that, not merely breaking her heart but shattering it into a million pieces? How dare he run away from his problems, from her? It was cowardly. Cruel. Anger seizing her, she lashed out, her foot slamming into the lowest drawer of Giles’ desk. The wood cracked beneath the onslaught, the papers within spilling out onto the floor. Buffy slumped back against the bookcase, her head dropping. She groaned. 

“Oh, great job, Buffy,” she said to herself. “Super mature.” 

Outside the window, the skies opened. The pitter-patter of rain began upon the glass, droplets glinting in the sodium light from the street below. Inside, there was the low grumble of elderly pipework as the heating kicked in. 

What now?

In the immediate future, Buffy thought, she ought to get showered and get herself home. Perhaps pick up the papers that had spilled out of Giles’ broken desk drawer, if she was feeling particularly magnanimous. But after that? She wasn't sure. Tomorrow was another working day, and with Dawn currently occupying her spare bedroom, calling in sick was out of the question. At least, not without a great deal of suspicion and questioning from her little sister.

Giles had rostered her for duty with two young Slayers tomorrow evening. She did not want to let them down.

Despite the Watchers’ maxim having changed (in each generation there were many girls, not simply a chosen one), it was no less dangerous a destiny. It was no less _lonely_. 

They patrolled in groups now. Two at a minimum. It had been one of the first changes that Giles had implemented in his role as Head of the Council. No Slayer was to go on patrol alone: it was a policy that had saved a number of lives over the years. And whilst it had dramatically lowered the fatality rate, the average lifespan of a Slayer climbing with each passing year, it had made distinctly less impact upon their somewhat hampered social lives. Lives like theirs were still too dangerous to share with the uninitiated; friends, lovers, family still fell by the wayside for most, the only comfort for those chosen to walk such a dangerous path their fellow travellers. 

Some things changed. Some things didn’t. 

Buffy thought of Willow and Xander. It had been a while since she had spoken to either of them: Willow was Away, walking different dimensions in her relentless quest to control the power she had unwittingly woken within herself; Xander had taken it upon himself to go travelling, his more recent attempts to satisfy his wanderlust taking him to places far more exotic than Oxnard. They’d drifted apart after Sunnydale, each going their separate ways. Friends, if no longer as close as they once were, but all with their own, very different demons to conquer. Different paths to walk. And now it seemed that the path she had shared with Giles was beginning to deviate, too. 

She sighed heavily. 

The intention had been to spend tomorrow afternoon with Giles working through a plan for the Council’s expansion back into Europe, with the hope of re-opening their French and German branches. However, the thought of spending an afternoon alone with Giles, things the state they were between them, made her feel sick. Whilst she had little doubt that Giles would be able to keep things coldly professional, Buffy knew she would have a great deal more trouble. She couldn’t just switch her feelings on and off, pretend she wasn’t angry or heartbroken or lost, nor was she sure that she wanted to.

The absence of feeling was something she had no wish to experience again. Because, after everything, after death and resurrection and the loneliness of each, even anger, pain, was preferable to nothing at all. 

Perhaps the answer, then, was to come clean? Confess to Dawn and stay home until her scheduled patrol. Give herself, and Giles, some breathing space until the conversation she knew they must have no longer felt so overwhelming. 

She knew how it would go. Giles would tell her he was sorry; he would give no explanations and seek nothing in return, not even forgiveness. Eventually, she would accept his apology, grant him leniency, and they would be right back to where they were before. Square one, rolling the die until there were snakes again.

No, she told herself. This time there would be an end to it. They would return to their respective positions of Watcher and Slayer, perhaps even friends given enough time and distance, and they would forget any of this ever happened. That they were ever anything more intimate than comrades in arms. That he had ever been anything more to her than her mentor. 

It was simply the way things had to be. 

Resigned, Buffy pushed herself up from her position upon the floor. A little unsteady upon her feet, she stumbled towards the door, picking up her purse as she went. As her hand reached for the handle, she found herself pausing, suddenly unwilling to leave the Giles’ office. It was as though stepping through the door and into the world beyond would make it real. Less like a bad dream, and more of an incontrovertible fact. 

Buffy slammed a hand against the door. Once. Twice. The flat of her palm echoed against the oak, the hinges rattling with the force of each blow. Blowing air through her nose, she turned and leant against the door. Slowly, she sunk to the floor. A growl of frustration in her throat, she rested back against the wood and said, “Why does this have to be so hard?” 

There was the sound of shuffling from behind the door, followed by a voice.

“I’m sorry.”

Buffy frowned, her frustration dissipating, replaced by confusion. He was supposed to have left.

“Giles?”

She held her breath as she waited for the reply, almost afraid he would answer, but not quite sure why. 

“I can leave, if you want,” he replied after a moment, his voice muffled and soft through the door. “I'd understand if you'd rather not see me.”

“I thought you already had.”

There was a pause. Time seemed to stretch out between them, the ticking of the clock on the far wall slower than she thought it ought to be. Buffy watched the seconds loop round as she waited for Giles to break the silence. One rotation. Two. 

“I don't want any trouble,” Giles said as the second hand made its third pass of the clock face. 

“Bit late for that,” she replied. 

“Apparently so.”

Buffy sighed, her head knocking against the door as she let it drop back, eyes closed. 

“You suck at this whole running away business,” she said. “You're supposed to actually leave when you hightail it out of somewhere, you know. That's like Fighting 101.”

There was an answering sigh from the other side of the door.

“I tried.”

“I know. I was there.”

“I'm sorry.”

Another meaningless apology. That made two. Buffy wondered how many more he would offer before the night was through, and whether or not she would accept any of them. The anger that she had tamped down began to resurface, bubbling through the sadness until her cheeks felt hot and her chest too tight. 

“You've already said that,” she snapped.

“But I couldn't leave,” he replied.

“What? Left your keys in the office or something?”

“No, I… I couldn't leave.” She heard a soft thud against the door, followed by a sigh. “I tried and I just… couldn't.”

“Ah, so you left your glasses in here then,” she replied. “Tell you what, I’ll give you a hint. The elevator’s about fifty paces the other way. Hit the bottom button, and voilà! You’ve left.”

“Buffy, please. You’re not listening to me.”

“No!” she snapped. “And why should I?”

“I’m trying to explain.”

She laughed. The sound was hollow.

“That would be a first.”

There was another pause. Outside, she heard something screech. A cat, perhaps, or one of the urban foxes whose existence so enraged the tabloids. Inside, she heard the creak of floorboards as Giles shifted behind the door. 

“If you’d have asked me where I thought I’d be at fifty-two,” he said after a moment, “this would not have been top of my list.”

“You mean standing outside your office like a lost puppy ‘cause you wigged out and went all General Hospital on me?”

“Sitting,” he corrected. “And not quite how I would have put it, but essentially yes.”

“Yeah, well whose fault is that?”

“Mine.”

“No arguments from me there,” she replied sharply.

“Noted. And I do, though, you know.”

She frowned. “Do what?”

“Love you,” he said softly.

The confession was unexpected, but did nothing to ease the anger that burned in her chest. If anything, it only stoked the fire. It was too little, too late. She told him as much. 

“Yeah, and maybe that would have mattered if you’d told me that an hour ago instead of pulling a Houdini.” Buffy folded her arms. “One out of ten for timing Giles. Looks like you failed.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying you’re sorry!” she thundered. “It’s not some magic word you can say and just automatically make everything better. It doesn’t change the fact that you left. That you took exactly what you wanted from me, and then, when I opened up to you, told you how I feel… felt, you left.”

Hot tears stung her eyes. She swiped at them with her fingers, annoyed. There was a box of tissues upon Giles’ desk, half buried under the piles of paper that were making a bid for their escape. Buffy was contemplating retrieving them when Giles spoke again.

“I-I can’t change what happened,” he said, “as much as I wish I could, but I need you to know that I do regret it.”

“It was cruel.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “I was afraid.”

“Of what? Of love? Me?”

“That I would hurt you.”

A snort of bitter amusement escaped her before she could stop it. 

“Spoiler alert, you already did.”

Once again, the conversation lapsed into an uneasy silence. Buffy was breathing heavily, a burning pain in her throat as she tried to halt the tears that spilt down her cheeks. She wondered whether Giles was crying too. Unlikely, she decided after a moment, though a cruel part of her, the part that hurt the most, wished that he was. Wished that the feeling of pain and humiliation was mutual, rather than something she was suffering alone. 

“Do you know what the Threefold Law is, Buffy?” said Giles. His tone was calm, flat.

The abrupt change in the direction of their conversation made her frown. “No.”

“It’s a concept prevalent in Wicca,” he said in the same flat tone as before. “That whatever energy one puts into the world, good or bad, will be returned to them three times.”

“Okay, sure. Thanks for the impromptu magic lesson,” she said sharply. “But I don’t get how this relates to you apparently getting cold feet.”

She heard him sigh deeply. 

“Do you remember what I told you about my life before I became a Watcher. About Randall?”

“That he died,” she said carefully, her anger momentarily quelled by her curiosity.

Giles shifted behind the door. The floorboards creaked as he moved; Buffy could feel them flex beneath her, feel the door too as it wobbled on his hinges. If pressed, Buffy would guess that they were sitting back to back. Mirror images, separated by oak and paint. 

“Randall’s death was my fault,” said Giles. “I brought the book. I selected the demon. I cast the circle of protection. His death was my fault, and that fault, that energy, must be returned upon me three times. Three deaths.” 

Her frown deepened, as her tears dried upon her cheeks, leaving them tight and hot.

“I don’t get it,” she said. “I mean, yeah, I get the whole threesome rule thingy-”

“Threefold rule,” Giles corrected. 

“Whatever. It’s like karma, but more mathsy. I get it. But why Randall? What’s so important about his death? And what the hell has it got to do with me?”

“He loved me.”

Buffy closed her eyes. Her mouth pursed in frustration. Giles was trying to tell her something important, in his usual, roundabout way. There was a leap he expected her to make, dots he wished her to join. She was exhausted; her thoughts seemed to be moving with all the speed of treacle, the cogs and gears sticky, the pace inchmeal. 

“So you think,” she said slowly, “that because of this threefold thingy, three people you love are going to die?”

“No. People who love me.”

“Bullshit,” she scoffed. “Gotta say, Giles, this is probably the most inventive excuse I’ve ever heard. You think I’m an idiot?” She pulled a face. “You legged it because you were trying to save me? Break my heart so I wouldn’t be next on the Grim Reaper’s big ole list? Yeah right. You going to try and sell me a bridge, too, while you’re at it?”

“All evidence points towards my conclusion.”

“You’re deluded.”

“Surely the fate of Miss Calendar, Jenny, hadn’t escaped your notice?” he said coldly.

“Coincidence,” Buffy replied. 

“I think not. And she wasn’t the first. I told you about Georgina. The accident.”

She blinked and thought for a moment. Georgina. The woman in the photograph. It appeared her suspicions had been correct - Georgina was not a sister or a cousin, but a lover. One whose death had left Giles scarred not only physically, but mentally, it seemed. 

That was two in favour of his theory, bizarre as it was. 

“Okay, fine,” she said. “Let’s suppose you’re a homme fatale with an icicle for a heart. You didn’t think that me falling head over jimmy choos for you was a risk in this whole pelvic-affiliates thing?”

“Frankly, no.” 

“So what you’re saying is that you didn’t think I was capable of loving you? Why? Think I’m too shallow? Or just unable to love anyone who isn’t of the undead and fang-y persuasion?”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” he replied. She could hear the irritation in his voice. “I don’t think you’re shallow, Buffy. Nor do I think fangs and the lack of a pulse are required to win your affections. However, the fact remains that I didn’t believe that you falling i-in love with me was a risk I needed to factor into the equation.”

“Okay, so setting aside Schrodinger’s Buffy for a sec, what did _you_ want out of it?”

“I wanted… I…” He sighed. “I don’t know what I wanted, but you wanted me. I’m not noble enough to pretend I wasn’t flattered. We’ve been so close for so long, Buffy. That sort of closeness tends to breed the desire to experience a different sort of familiarity after a while. You might see me as nothing more than a Watcher, a walking, talking encyclopaedia of the occult, but I’m still human, with human wants and feelings. You wanted me, and I-I-I was intrigued. Only, you didn’t want love. You wanted sex. An escape. And, suddenly, here was this beautiful loophole. A way we could both indulge our… curiosity, our desires, without either of us getting hurt. I thought I could bend the rules a little. Keep everything compartmentalised. Keep it separate.” Buffy heard his voice catch as he continued, “I thought, if I kept everything firmly within the rules I had created, pushed you to find a more suitable partner, made it feel _temporary_ , I-I believed that you wouldn’t fall in love with me.” He paused, before continuing, “Even though I had fallen in love with you.”

“Yeah, well, you miscalculated,” she said quietly. 

Buffy shivered. She could feel the early morning chill beginning to creep across her skin. An arm’s length away, her wrap sat discarded upon the carpet. She reached for it. 

“God, this is a mess,” she muttered as she moved back against the door, wrapped in her scarf. She blew out her cheeks and looked up at the ceiling. A spider, small and black, was making its way across the tiles. “You should have told me,” she continued, louder now, “right back at the beginning. Then maybe we could have handled this like adults. You know, together. Rather than you making my decisions for me, like you always do.” 

“I’m sorry. If I could turn back the clock, stop this whole sordid affair before it even began, I would.” He paused for a moment. “If you wish to leave,” he said sadly, “all you have to do is open the door. I won’t stand in your way.”

“Or sit.”

“Stand, sit, or even lie.”

“A bold claim.”

There was a pause, before he said, “I haven’t lied to you, Buffy.”

“No, you’ve just been super economical with the truth. Which is kinda the same thing. At least from my perspective.”

“It was never my intention to ma-”

“I know, and that’s the problem,” she said, cutting him off. She sighed deeply, resting her head against the door. “We got into this mess because I know nothing about you beyond your Watcher-y-ness. You’re just this big Giles-shaped blankness is my life. Only ever exactly what I need you to be, rather than what you really are. Who you really are. And it’s not because I’m not interested, by the way, but it’s because you’re pretty much allergic to the whole sharing personal information thing. It took four years to get you to tell me when your birthday was. I only know about your aunts because I met them. By accident. It took a stupid fight to get you to tell me about your mom and dad, and that was just their names.” She closed her eyes. “I’ve known you for ten years, Giles. Ten. And I know pretty much nothing about your life before you came to Sunnydale. Or, if I’m honest, that much about it after you did.” 

“You’ve never asked,” he replied. 

“Oh no. Don’t start with that bullshit. This isn’t my fault. You really think you’d have told me if I’d just come straight out and asked?” she said, clutching her scarf tighter. “Don’t kid yourself.”

“This idea that everything must be discussed, analysed, is a purely American obsession. Not everything requires a conversation.”

“But that’s just it! You don’t talk about anything. Ever. You just sweep it all under the rug and carry on, like nothing ever happened. Even when it’s killing you,” she said. “When it hurts others.”

“And what, exactly, would talking things through achieve? The threefold rule would still apply, discussed or not.”

“Do you think everything would have played out this way if we’d _talked_ about it? If I’d known?”

“Probably not,” he admitted after a moment.

“And that’s the problem!” she said. “Fighting? You’ve got that down to an art. But talking? Not so much.” She laughed mirthlessly. “I’ve always thought that was a bit weird, you know, for a guy who uses ten words for every one that you actually need. You have a talent for taking a long time to say nothing.”

“So says the chatterbox.”

“Hey, I never said I was any better. And okay, I might not be the best in the world at the whole talking about my feelings thing, but at least I actually do talk sometimes.”

“I talk.”

“No, you don’t. You run away.”

“Well, what do you want me to do?” Giles said, his tone challenging. Perhaps also a little bit vulnerable.

Sighing in displeasure at Giles’ prevarication, she rolled her shoulders, trying to loosen the muscles of her neck. Banish the ache that had taken up residence there. 

“Tell me about it. Tell me who you are. Like, really are, deep down. Help me understand.” She swallowed loudly. “Help me fix it.”

Giles was silent: no explanation appeared to be forthcoming. At a loss for what to do, she crossed her ankles, laced her fingers across her knees, and waited.

“I spent most of my twenties in a punk rock band,” he said after a time. “Not a very good one, mind. We got the occasional pub booking, and a support act gig here and there. Not a great living, if I’m honest; there’s only so many years one can spend living in a squat before things start to feel less like anarchy and more like hopelessness.

“I wasn’t… well. I’d got shot of the magicks after Ethan and I parted ways, but there were other habits that weren’t quite as easy to kick. If it were anyone but you, I’d say it was the 70s and that’s just how things were then, but that’s really no defence. And it’s not really true.” She heard him sigh heavily. “Sex, drugs, and rock & roll. I was the full cliche, strung out on god only knew what, but I played to an audience of ten rather than ten thousand. A poor man’s Ozzy, with the collosal habit but none of the talent.” 

So far, none of this was new to her. Buffy knew that during the time he had spent with Ethan and Co. magic had been the least of his problems. Over the years, both she and the rest of the Scoobies had pieced together enough information to deduce that Giles’ vices had been wilder and a great deal more illicit than any of theirs. 

“Why’d you leave? Go back to the Council?” she asked. 

“I ran out of money,” he said simply. “So I did what any self respecting crackhead a few sandwiches short of a picnic would do. I broke into my Gran’s house and nicked her jewelry out of the safe.”

“No!” said Buffy in surprise, anger apparently forgotten. 

“Oh yes. Needless to say, she caught me red-handed. Gave me the dressing down of my life, too, which was probably my saving grace,” he said. “God, she was angry. A dragon in horn-rimmed spectacles and a lavender twin set, my Gran. All five-foot two of her. I don’t think I’d ever been so frightened in my whole life. But she got me clean and sober, and she did love me. Beneath all the fire and bluster, she cared.” Buffy heard him shift on the other side of the door. “After a few weeks of achingly dull clean living, I was unceremoniously deposited upon my mother’s doorstep and became her problem. And she more or less certainly saw it that way. Not that I can really blame her. I was a terrible disappointment.”

“Because you ran away?”

“Because I came back.” He paused. “Things were… complicated. She loved me, don’t get me wrong, but things were never easy between us after my father died.”

Another missing piece of the puzzle that was Rupert Giles. Skillfully delivered, as ever, whilst the focus of the conversation was elsewhere. Hidden in plain sight. She wondered how many other pieces of information she had missed over the years. How often she hadn’t really been listening. 

“What happened?”

“Vampire. Killed his Slayer, too. Gillian.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago, Buffy,” Giles said softly. 

“But I bet it still hurts, though. Things like that,” she said, “well, they’ve got a way of never really healing.” 

“No.”

Buffy thought back to her mother’s death, and then her own. The second one. Had that wound ever really healed? For either of them? She thought not. 

“How old was she when she died?”

“Twenty.”

Seven years her junior. Another reminder of quite how long she had managed to evade the inevitable, her two previous attempts at permanently pushing up daisies notwithstanding. 

“Shesh. That’s rough.”

A mirthless laugh emanated from beyond the door. “That’s one way of putting it, I suppose,” said Giles. “She was like a sister to me. We were close; she’d lived with us since she was seven. It was almost like losing a limb.”

Slowly things began to click into place. 

“And your mom didn’t want to lose you, too,” said Buffy. “That’s why she didn’t want you back, right? Because then you’d have to go work for the Council, do the whole family firm thing, and it’s not like Watchers have a long expiration date, is it?”

“The comparison to fresh meat does rather draw itself.”

Buffy snorted. Despite the seriousness of the conversation, she found couldn’t help herself. 

“So what did your mom say when you told her you wanted to be a Watcher? Were there fireworks, or was it more of a cold shoulder thing?”

“She said that it was what my dad would have wanted.” 

“Ouch.”

Buffy heard him blow out a long breath. “It was my destiny. It’s what I was born to be. What I wanted to be,” he said, perhaps a little sadly. It was difficult to tell through the door. “She couldn’t bring herself to tread on my dreams.”

The faint chime of Big Ben interrupted the flow of conversation. Buffy shifted against the door, re-lacing her hands around her tucked up legs. She rested her chin against her knees.

“Your mom sounds nice.”

“She was,” Giles replied. “And I think I managed to redeem myself eventually. Though it took me a fair bit of time to do it.”

“Oh? How?”

“Got myself into a coven.” There was the creak of floorboards as Giles shifted beyond the door. “A decent one, too. Not that it was easy, given my history and affiliation with the Council. The relationship between the Witching world and the Watcher one is acrimonious at best, even now.”

“Your mom was a witch, right? Couldn’t you have just joined hers?”

“No. There were already thirteen. And it is frowned upon for a son to join his mother’s coven. Not to get too deep into western esoteric theory, as this really isn’t the time or place, but too much consanguinity between members of any one coven can cause issues with casting.”

“So how did you do it?” 

“The usual way,” he said. “I married a witch.” 

Another bomb dropped in the offhand way that coloured almost every important conversation they had ever had. But not entirely unexpected. Buffy wasn’t stupid. Perhaps a little slow on the uptake on occasion, but not stupid. This was a part of the puzzle she had already pieced together, her suspicions correct if the exact facts had been a little fuzzy. 

“Georgina,” said Buffy.

“Yes.” There was a pause. “And no, before you ask, she didn’t take my last name. Names have power; altering the name also alters the power. Besides, the alliteration would have been entirely too unfortunate. Georgina Giles,” he said with a tut. “Could you imagine? She’d have had kittens anytime anyone so much as mentioned anything remotely equine.”

“What?”

“You know, gee-gees.” Giles paused, as though waiting for confirmation. 

“Not seeing the connection, but I’ll take your word for it,” said Buffy drily. 

“Horses!”

“Yeah, no,” Buffy replied. “That’s not a thing.” 

“Americans,” huffed Giles. Buffy could almost hear the eye-roll that no doubt accompanied the gripe. “Nick our language and don’t even bother learning it properly.”

“Like ‘gee-gees’ is in the dictionary,” she said. “If it’s not in the dictionary, it doesn’t count.”

The silence that emanated from beyond the door told her she’d scored the point. 

“So,” she said, deciding she had let him stew long enough, “Georgina. What was she like?”

“Are you sure you really want to know?” Giles asked. 

“You know all about my life. Angel. Riley. Spike.” Buffy sighed sadly. “The good bits and the bad. I wasn’t naïve enough to think you’d never loved anyone before, Giles. I knew Jenny, too, remember. And you had a whole life before you even came to Sunnydale. The things you did, the people you loved - they made you… well, you, right? And that’s important.”

“I suppose.”

Buffy took a deep breath. She thought about Willow and Xander and how the world might have ended. About how improbable it had been that he had stopped her. Saved her. 

“You’re my friend,” she said. “Friends help each other, even when they’re mad. And I can’t help you if you don’t _talk_ to me. If you don’t open up a little.” She closed her eyes. “It’s all about give and take.”

“Georgina was… She was….” He paused for a second, as though searching for the right words. “We… Fit. Like bits of a jigsaw puzzle. She excelled in everything I lacked.” 

“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Nor, Buffy thought, had it been hard to hear, either. The jealousy she had expected to roar into being had not reared its ugly head. Instead, all she felt was sadness. 

“No,” Giles admitted. 

“Go on,” Buffy prompted.

“She was… Beautiful. Headstrong. A bit on the bossy side, and always used to make me do the washing up.” She felt him shift against the door. “She used to snort when she laughed. Really laughed. She had a cat named Brian, of all things. Thought it was dreadfully funny. I mean, whoever heard of a cat called Brian? He hated me.”

“What kind of cat?”

“Something black and vicious, forever hissing and spitting and scratching. You know, the traditional sort of deal.” 

“The Mog to her Meg,” Buffy said, sagely. 

“Exactly,” he said. “She used to come and give Mum a hand with the harvesting at the weekends. The trickier stuff that really needed two. She was a dab hand with the secateurs.” 

“Bet your mom loved that.”

“It depended on the day,” he said. Buffy could hear the hint of a smile tugging at the edges of his words. “Some days, I rather think my mother wanted to strangle her.”

“What mother-in-law doesn’t every now and again? It’s practically a requirement.”

“Well, quite.” 

Buffy took a deep breath, her chest tight.

“How long were you together before…?” she said, trailing off, unable to complete the sentence. 

“Five years,” Giles replied. “Almost six. I was thinking of leaving the Council. Moving out of the city. Perhaps even starting a family.”

“God, Giles.”

“Only… Well, you know the rest of the story.”

“Yeah.”

“Mum died a few years later,” he continued. “After that, there was nothing left to keep me here, so I accepted the post out in Sunnydale. Met you. Met Jenny. Two years later, I buried her, too.” He sighed deeply. “Can you see the pattern beginning to emerge?”

Buffy paused for a moment, thinking through the information he had just given her. About Georgina, and then about Jenny. About the other women who had shared Giles' bed over the years.

“Thing is,” she said, “I’m not sure two is enough for a pattern.”

“Two out of a possible three is relatively convincing, Buffy,” Giles replied. “Enough to at least exercise some caution on the matter, wouldn’t you say?”

Buffy nodded, then realising he couldn’t see, said, “Yes. But...” She sat and thought for a moment. “But I still don’t understand. Not really. I mean, this threewhatsit rule thing - it only focuses on a specific kind of love, right? Not the generic, friendly love the Scoobies have for you? Or Dawn? Or any of your buddies down at the Council?”

“Correct.”

“Just the sexy, sleeping together, beast with two backs kind of love.” She tilted her head to the side, thinking. “Which then makes you wonder, how much does it take?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Ditto,” she mumbled before continuing, louder this time, “What I mean is, how much love do you have to feel before this thing kicks in? We talking full-on, head in the clouds, walking on sunshine kind of love, or just that fluttering feeling you get when someone super hot smiles at you?”

“You can’t define love that way,” said Giles dismissively. “It’s obviously more complicated than that.”

Buffy grimaced as Giles missed the point and said, “But that’s exactly what I mean! It’s so complicated it could never work. It’s all mumbo-jumbo crap. Think about it. None of this makes any sense. If everyone who felt even the tiniest bit of love for you died, then Olivia would be dead, but she isn’t. She’s alive and well and living with some hot-shot banker in Knightsbridge.” 

“Olivia didn’t love me, Buffy. We were just friends.”

“How do you know?” Buffy shook her head. “And even if she didn’t love you right at that moment, where did you think things were going to go if she’d stayed? That you’d just stay friends with benefits forever? I know you, Giles. You’re not like that.”

“It was something I would have tackled had I needed to.”

“You’d have left her. Broken her heart,” she said. There was no anger in her words, just a statement of incontrovertible fact. “Like you broke mine. Which I still haven’t forgiven you for, yet.”

“I never meant to hurt you.”

“Yeah, well, bad luck, Giles. That’s exactly what you did.” She sighed heavily. “I still don’t get it. Why make the suggestion you did? Why start sleeping with me?”

“You came to me for help.”

“Help. Not sex,” Buffy corrected. “And I’m not saying I didn’t want that, because you know I did. But you’ve got to admit, it’s a strange choice for a guy who thinks his cock’s a doom magnet.” 

“Buffy…”

“And anyway, don’t you think, at some point, one of us would have noticed you’d been cursed?” she continued, almost as if he hadn’t spoken. “Like me, or Willow. Or Tara? It would have shown up in your aura or something. Or maybe the Council? Surely they check for that sort of thing. Seems kinda important in the general scheme of stuff.”

“It’s not a curse, Buffy.”

“All right, bad luck, then,” she said. “Look at it rationally, Giles. You live a dangerous life. All Watchers do, even the ones in training. How many times have you almost died? ‘Cause I can count, like, six without even trying. And Jenny hardly lead trouble-free life, either. She played a dangerous game and lost. _I’ve_ lost. Twice. But none of these things are the result of some stupid rule.”

“And Georgina?”

“A horrible, terrible accident.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“And neither can you,” she replied.

“Which is why I can’t risk it,” he countered.

“Being with me?”

“You’ve already died twice, Buffy,” he said. “Two deaths. Two.”

“Neither of which had anything to do with you.”

“I have no wish to experience that-that kind of… grief again. Especially armed with the knowledge that I may have been directly responsible for your demise.”

“Yeah, well, tough luck, buddy. Chances are you’re going to outlive me, this rule thing or not. I’m a Slayer. Short and not so sweet is kind of a given.”

“Buffy, please don’t talk like that.”

“Why? It’s true enough. Things haven’t changed that much.” Buffy paused for a second, then said, “Look, I’ve had enough of talking through doors, and my butt’s gone to sleep. Besides, I don’t know about you, but I need caffeine, like, yesterday.”

Taking the hint, Giles asked, “Would you like me to leave?”

“Now? Yes.” said Buffy. “As enlightening as this has been, and boy has it, I don’t really want to see you right now.”

“I understand.”

She heard the floorboards squeak and the rustle of fabric as Giles rose from his place behind the door. 

“But I don’t want you to _leave_ leave,” she said, hastily. “You know, for Kenya or something. If you go, I won’t follow you.” 

There was a pause. Buffy rose unsteadily to her feet. She turned to grasp the doorknob, resting her head against the cool wood as she waited for a reply. 

“No more running,” Giles said. “I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> This series will conclude with part 7, Lessons.


End file.
